Online Library of Selected Images:
-- U.S. NAVY SHIPS --

USS Meade (Destroyer # 274, later DD-274), 1919-1940

USS Meade, a 1109-ton Clemson class destroyer
built at Squantum, Massachusetts, was commissioned in September
1919. She soon was sent to the Pacific Coast, where she operated
until decommissioning at San Diego, California, in May 1922. Meade
received the designation DD-274 in mid-1920. Following more than
seventeen years in "red lead row", the now-elderly destroyer
was brought back into active service by the outbreak of World
War II in Europe. She recommissioned in December 1939 and served
for much of the next year in the Atlantic. Late in November 1940,
as part of the "destroyers for bases" arrangement between
Great Britain and the United States, Meade was decommissioned
and transferred to the Royal Navy. Renamed Ramsey, she
operated in the North Atlantic for the remainder of the Second
World War. Taken out of service at the end of June 1945, HMS Ramsey
was scrapped in England in 1947.

USS Meade was named in honor of Rear Admiral Richard
Worsam Meade (1837-1897), who served actively as an officer in
the Navy from 1850 to 1895; and his brother, Brigadier General
Robert Lemy Meade (1841-1910), who was on active duty as a U.S.
Marine Corps officer from 1862 to 1906.

This page features all the views we have related to Meade
(Destroyer # 274, later DD-274).